Download PDF The Cost of These Dreams Sports Stories and Other Serious Business eBook Wright Thompson

Product details File Size 2092 KB Print Length 388 pages Publisher Penguin Books (April 2, 2019) Publication Date April 2, 2019 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B07FBZVN8L

The Cost of These Dreams Sports Stories and Other Serious Business eBook Wright Thompson Reviews

• I have read sports books… sports sections… sports magazines… literally non-stop for sixty-years… and I had never heard of this writer. I… of course stopped reading ESPN the Magazine a decade and a half ago. So why did I buy this book? Because I saw a brief part of an interview with him on ESPN… and in the part I saw… he spoke passionately about his Father and other Fathers. Being that I’m a Father and a Son… and miss my Dad every single day he’s been gone for the last thirty-nine years… I am enticed by the opportunity to share other’s feelings… when they talk or write from the heart about this hallowed subject.
  
  Am I happy that I bought this book? Yes I am. There was a writer whose true glory days were before my time… but who was always quoted with his feathery yet powerful prose in almost every sports book of historical consequence that I read growing up. Then about six years ago a five-hundred-page “Very Best Of” book… was published with his writings. I read it and was blown away! His sports writing was like a velvet trip down a highway of polished steel. That sportswriter’s name… was Red Smith. The author of “The Cost of These Dreams”… Wright Thompson… just got done taking me on a similar journey.
  
  All stories in this book are not about Fathers and Sons… but each story is written almost like a slack-jawed wonder… of how someone turned out the way they did… or what they’re trying to turn into… or how they’re floundering… or at least yearning to… turn into something they’re not… or something that they used to be. There are no sure shot discoveries or pronouncements… in some stories the author becomes a determined investigator…. How does one of the men that fought Muhammad Ali seem to defy the bounds of earth and simply disappear? How does one of the greatest soccer players in the world almost leave no touchstone by his original hometown fans… how a former college basketball standout… winds up dead while trying to escape his paranoia in a Brazilian jungle?
  
  The answers… and the demonizing… non-answers… are majestically described and shared… with the ever so wonderful… symphonic orchestration of words… and feelings by the author. Some of our most idolized world sports stars are extremely unhappy… and many don’t even know what they’re truly searching for… and probably wouldn’t realize whether it was what they really needed if they were able to corral it in their grasp. The author comes to some conclusions that are not sugar coated cotton candy days at the beach. Sometimes… the things that made someone great in their sport… makes it impossible to be happy in life.
  
  The author himself… is at times… searching for his own possible balance … of his life… where he came from… and the “true” makeup of his for-bearers… in the absolutely tremendous story “GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI”. Tied together in one sad… gripping… historically enlightening… segment… about the 1962 integrating of Ole Miss… by James Meredith. The ugliness of America’s south… the author’s hometown Mississippi… the politicians… local and national… the sheriffs… the police… the National Guard… the only undefeated team in Ole Miss history… and the moments when Wright Thompson… has to look directly into his families mirror… not ethically being able to turn away… and really peer inside his family’s history… and see what they were really made of… as human beings.
  
  And in the end… aaahhh yes! The touching story of the author… unable to live out a final dream with his beloved Father… walking together on the grass of Augusta National during the Masters. But the loving son… wearing his **DAD’S” shoes… and carrying other tightly held artifacts… both animate… and inanimate takes his life’s… most important… touching… and yet… at times empty… walk… with the memory of his Father. With the author’s heavenly blessed ability to magically put together words… that can make countless others think… AND… feel… sends his aching happiness… and yes regrets… to his Father in heaven… just as I have constantly tried to do to **MY DAD" for the last thirty-nine years!
• It's all pre-published, but it's a good anthology. My only question is, how on Earth did he not include his 2018 profile of Ichiro in Kobe?
• Some good ones. Some not so good. Loved the Tiger and MJ expose but who cares about some forgotten Mohamed Ali oponent?
• Each of his stories leads you into the hidden world of a hero. His search for "Sweet Jimmy" brings you to the inside of a life that is never recovered. This is a great book for a sports fan.
• Wright Thompson may be the best writer in America. He seeks and finds great stories.
• Eloquent stories about the high cost of fame and its loss.
• Great book. Great read!
• What a collection of stories from the very best of us. These timeless tales are not about sports; do not be fooled. They are parables about birth and death and the great and terrible quest between, meditations on desire, pressure, achievement, unrest, and unraveling. The characters are familiar, but you only thought you knew them. You'll have trouble looking, and trouble looking away.